I Will Survive
by Nerweniel
Summary: 4th of October 2004 Happy Birthday, Minerva! It's Minerva's birthday and she's all alone, since Albus has been on an Order mission for the past two months and there's not much hope left. Will she survive? ADMM... happy end!


**I Will Survive**

Minerva McGonagall closed her eyes as the door fell shut behind her back. Quickly gathering some books, she moved towards her bedroom door- then shook her head and carelessly dropped them on the floor. She did perhaps love books, but there were some things she loved better. Some things that were missing.

Some things that had been missing since August 4th- since exactly two months earlier. She'd been counting the days- she would know the exact number even if this day, October 4th, hadn't been the day of her 70th birthday.

He had been gone for two months now. Order business, they called it and even she wasn't permitted to know the core of it- she was still on non-active after the rather sad stunner incident of some months earlier. Ridiculous, of course, but unfortunately true. It was common custom to, after serious injure, wait at least four months before taking any new mission. A safety measure, because, so they had explained to her, trustworthy people were very scarce, and very valuable indeed.

So he had gone instead of her, and he still hadn't returned.

_At first I was afraid, I was petrified,  
__kept thinking I could never teach  
__without you by my side,  
__but then I spent so many nights thinkin' how  
__she did us wrong, and I grew strong,  
__and I learnt how to get along._

The first day of school had been hell- that she was ready to admit any time. Nobody knew anything about the whereabouts of their Headmaster- until she had tried hexing Alastor Moody and he had in the end admitted he didn't know it either. Minerva's fit of anger had been fierce- but short, since she had realized she had a school to rule during its Headmaster absence. She had been very frightened at first- frightened for the school, but also just frightened like any other woman would be- anxious for news of the man she loved. Her best friend for more than forty years- her lover for not even forty days on the day of that goodbye- and she had never felt so powerful before.

Not even during that terrible summer term of the last year, when...

Because for some reason, she drew strength from the sheer mental image of Dolores Umbridge stunning her, that self-confident, wretched smile on her toad-like face. Dolores had once caught her off her guard- but no-one, no-one on this earth, would ever do that again. So she had bitten her thin lips, forced a smile on her face and sat there, on his very own, large chair, whilst Sylvia Sprout placed the Sorting Hat on each new student's head, and she had even rendered a small start-of-the-year-speech. She still wondered at how she'd managed to make a decent appearance, while her heart felt like exploding and a terrible headache ripped her head apart.

But she had done what she'd had to do, and even on this day, her birthday, the only day in the year she had always simply needed him to be there, she did not complain.

_You won't be back, from outer space,  
__I won't walk in to find you here with  
__twinkle looks upon your face, should I have  
__kept the door shut locked, should I have  
__hidden that Portkey, if I had  
__known for just one second you'd  
__not be here with me._

But hiding the Portkey had not been an option, she knew as she fell down on the couch they had shared so many times before. She hadn't felt the faintest urge to do so either- she'd simply nodded and tried to smile as he'd announced his "secret mission" to her. Their life was a risk, taken together, and that it had always been.

But she had never imagined he would have missed her birthday, the only day in the year she finally permitted that egoism that lived deep inside every human being to enjoy itself a little- that one day!

She knew she could hardly blame him, but it hurt nonetheless. It hurt. And she could be strong, and she could smile, but she could cry as well.

At night.

_And I will go, walk out that door,  
__won't turn around now, so as not  
__to cry anymore,  
__You were the one who tried  
__not to hurt me with goodbye, I'd want  
__to crumble, I'd want to lay down and die._

Would she have the power to go on if he died? That was the question she, though reluctantly and deeply buried under a mask of steady bravery, she posed herself. Would she? Or would that famous, Gryffindor bravery she'd become known for finally crumble under the heavy burden of a lost love?

When he had spoken his last goodbye, sealed into existence by a simple kiss, she had been sad- but not the way she was now. A goodbye, not a farewell.

Two months later, the looks of so many people, resting on her back with a hint of badly concealed pity, told her what mouths refused to speak out.

Time had nearly consumed the vague, frail thing that was true, heart-felt hope.

And naturally she'd go on.

_But oh not I, I will survive,  
__Oh as long as I still know  
__you love, I know I'll stay alive,  
__though I've got no life to live;  
__no love I'd still want to give,  
__I'll survive, I will survive,  
__Hey, Hey!_

Just as she started to fall asleep on the couch, his old cloak wrapped around her shoulders despite her sternly reproaching herself for such absolutely melodramatic behaviour, a knock was heard on the door. It was a mysterious knock, her confused, sleepy mind immediately registered. Not the loud, enthusiastic, trademark knock of Rolanda Hooch. Nor the soothing, discrete one of Madam Pomfrey or the rather impulsive, friendly one of Sylvia Sprout. It was a mysterious knock, and she, with a rather irritated move of her wand, opened the door, she sighed. Her friends had congratulated her on her birthday, but they had also been so wise as to leave her alone in the end, for which she was grateful. She would survive, perhaps, yes, but mysterious knocks on her door at 10 o'clock in the evening weren't exactly of any assistance.

Her surprise couldn't have been greater as all she saw were two big, twinkling blue eyes, before two welcoming arms enveloped her, caressing her now trembling back, heart beating like it had never beaten before.

Minerva McGonagall knew one thing for a fact, as her lover's lips crushed hers and his hoarse voice whispered

"Happy birthday, darling. I am so sorry."

She would survive.


End file.
